Continuing the examination of the toxic conservative email stream, here’s the next entry from the email under the microscope:
As ever, context is everything, and I’ll start with this: the Minnesota electric grid easily handles nights of at least -50, and no doubt more – I’m simply being conservative in my estimate. I know it does because I’ve seen nights that cold and our electric grid is not a matter of worry.
But, more importantly, the writer is not mentioning that this is a reference to the recent debacle in Texas, in which the power grid did, indeed, suffer failures related to the lower than normal temperatures. Here’s what’s important to know about the electric grid: it is a nationally distributed grid in which power can be moved from areas in which it is excess to areas which are wanting.
Except in Texas.
In the name of independence, Texas made it law that the electric grid could not join the national grid. Additionally, relentless pressure has been exerted to drop rates for electricity.
The result is a brittle electric grid that does not receive the investment for upgrades and weather hardening required for a twenty first century likely to see severe weather events not encountered by Americans before. Precipitated by the use of fossil fuels, a rational, competent person might expect a message like this to advocate for a switch from fossil fuels to other fuels.
And not crassly suggest the electric grid can’t handle EV (electric vehicle) recharging, based on misrepresentations and omitted information.
This sort of ad appeals to a mythical Golden Age often celebrated by a conservative movement resentful of being told that change is coming. it’s an attack on the myth of perfection, the idea that we’re the apex of civilization.
And not just another creaking, flawed step up the ladder of progress.
It also appeals to the conservative ethos of amateurism, of common-sense winning the day, rather than the painfully acquired expertise of those citizens who’ve devoted decades to the study of such problems. This is an ethos for self-destruction, and not that of a successful society. It’s rather like asking a ten year old to work on the engine problem of a $60,000 SUV, rather than a trained mechanic.
The words of H. L. Mencken ring true:
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.
